


Throwaways and Tourniquets

by crickets



Series: Throwaways and Tourniquets [1]
Category: Lost
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-15
Updated: 2007-06-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 06:01:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crickets/pseuds/crickets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p><a href="http://crickets.livejournal.com/62073.html">Original Post</a>.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Throwaways and Tourniquets

**Author's Note:**

> [Original Post](http://crickets.livejournal.com/62073.html).

Lifeless. That’s how she’d describe his apartment complex. It’s in the bad part of town, or what she might imagine is the bad part of town: grey and fading, the painted numbers peeling away, but not nearly enough to uncover what’s inside.

Claire steps out of the rental car and feels like a shiny coin in a stack of broken, burnt-up matches, trudging through this drab mess he’s made.

Six days ago, her phone rings, the voice on the other end not the same that had whispered into her ear so many times, called her name, and shared their secret, but a dead man’s voice. He mutters incoherent words, strung together and falling apart, quiet, not even panicky, just beaten – defeated.

_Won’t see, there’s not enough, you can’t just… so fucking…_ she remembers before the connection was lost.

Thousands of miles behind her now, Aaron left in Sydney with a friend, and that voice is all she can think of, not the feel his mouth on hers or his scent or the way she felt warm in his hands when the world was so cold, how he looked at her when they last met, promises and lies and good intentions – all the things she doesn’t want to forget, gone. There’s just that voice, its gravelly hollowness. And as she approaches his apartment, she wonders just who she’ll find beyond the door.

-

Lifeless. That’s how he’d describe Jack’s touch, cool and limp and wanting nothing, giving nothing.

Last night, he knocks on the door, a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a straight razor in the other, wearing the same grin that’s hidden his fears so effortlessly all his life.

"What’s up, Doc?" he jokes, and Jack wanders wordlessly back into the apartment, door swinging open with its faded numbers. An invitation? A rebuttal? Either way, Sawyer follows him inside. The mess, the smell, the sudden draft (but maybe he just imagined that part), overtake him, and he realizes why Jack looked so fucked up in that bar six days ago, why he turned away from Sawyer’s touch, gave him the slip, left him the tab.

He gets through at first, but Jack closes up, closes off, lights a cigarette, tells Sawyer to go fuck himself. But then they end it like always, crashing down on one another, mouths and hands and teeth marks. In the end, Jack comes too fast, rolls over, and sleeps, leaving Sawyer to finish the job.

Now Jack sits, clean-shaven and nursing that whiskey like it’s his momma’s tit, and Sawyer’s done trying to reason with him, turns before he goes.

"You ain’t no lost cause, Jack," but he only half believes it.

-

"Well lookie what the cat drug in," Sawyer says when he yanks the door open, finding a very shocked Claire standing on Jack’s welcome mat, dark glasses, hair swept up in a loose bun, and one hand ready to knock. "Wasn’t expecting to see you here, Blondie. Come all the way from down under just to see yours truly?"

For a moment she hesitates, but then she closes her gaping mouth, tries to ignore the fact that he looks like he just rolled out of bed, and pushes past his steely frame. "Very funny Sawyer. Where is he?" She gets right to the point, taking her glasses off and throwing her bag onto the messy coffee table.

He follows her back into the apartment, kicks the door shut with his foot. "In there," he says simply, gesturing toward the bedroom. "And it ain’t pretty, Mamacita."

When she reaches the door, she finds him asleep on the floor amidst a sea of dirty clothes, pizza boxes, empty bottles, and piles of discarded papers, some that look like maps. He’s leaning against the wall, clutching a tumbler in one hand and an open bottle of pills in the other. His white undershirt is littered with stains, and he looks like he hasn’t seen the sun for weeks. For a moment, she forgets to breathe. When she finally does, she notices the smell, a combination of rotting trash and alcohol. "Oh, Jack," she whispers, a tone of bitterness in her voice, as she kneels in front of him, placing a hand on his cheek, "you stupid son of a bitch."

Sawyer leans in the doorway. "Told you."

"Shut up, Sawyer!" she snaps. "You were just gonna leave him like this, were you?"

"Better shape then what I found him in, that’s for damn sure, darlin’," Sawyer drawls. "’Sides, you’re here now, and I got places to be."

"You," Claire orders, turning towards him, "aren’t going _anywhere._"

-

"So what’s this plan?" Sawyer asks a few minutes after he hears the spray of the shower being turned on in the bathroom. Claire’s moving determinedly around him as he leans against the countertop, a nearly full black trash bag in her hand. "I mean, besides the maid service."

"No plan," she shrugs, shoving a handful of papers into the bag. "Just be here."

"And why is it exactly that you want me here?"

"Because," she says, pausing to tie the bag closed, "he listens to you."

"And he won’t listen to you?" Sawyer asks, turning to her as she drops to her knees in front of a cabinet filled with cleaning supplies.

"No," she says, pauses, then, "Yes. I don’t fucking know, Sawyer, okay? Why must you always be so goddamned difficult? I need you here, alright? Is that what you want to hear? Where’s the goddamned disinfectant?"

"Well, no," Sawyer says as he places both hands on the edge of the marble counter and hoists himself into a sitting position. "It’s on the left," he points out.

"Thanks," she says, and grabs it, standing up and turning to meet his gaze. "What then?"

"I don’t know, how about, ‘_Catch you later, mate, I’ll see you at the ten-year reunion?_’" He’s still comfortable in this long-forgotten façade of his. Before the crash, he never questioned whether it was real, his disinterest in the people around him, their lives, whether they lived or died. Now with her, he knows it’s an act, but still he presses on.

"Don’t be stupid," she says, reaching for the sponge behind him, brushing against his shoulder.

"You think I want this?"

"Nobody _wants_ this, Sawyer. But this is what we _do_. Things happen. The people we love do sometimes _need_ us, you know? Move. I need to get here," she says.

"It’s not like I haven’t tried." He hops down, and Claire stops scrubbing the countertop, faces him and steps forward, backing him into a corner.

"That’s right, you spent the night! You brought him some booze and shaved his face. Well! I’m very sorry. You’ve obviously done all you can. I suppose you can call it a day!"

"Fuck you, little sister! Oh that’s right, I forgot, that’s Jack’s job!" Sawyer spits, venom in his voice.

"Bastard!"

"Oh how you must miss that cock of his, what with being halfway across the world and all. That why you’re here? Got an itch that needs scratching?" He knows he’s gone too far when Claire’s blue eyes train themselves on the floor, and there’s a slight twinge in his gut telling him to stop, but he ignores it. _Second nature_. "Or maybe you and the doc can make young Aaron a little inbred baby brother or sister while you’re in town? I know, how about twins with matching little outfits to go with their matching misshapen heads? Sounds fucking adorable to me."

"Alright! Shut the hell up, both of you!" They whip around to find Jack, freshly showered and dressed, standing in the hallway. "As far as I’m concerned you _both_ can leave."

-

They argue. They scream. Jack fights them off and Sawyer holds him down, and eventually locks him in the closet, as Claire dumps every last drop of alcohol and all of the pills she can find down the toilet. This is what she needed and no, she couldn’t have done it alone. Jack curses them both, threatens to leave, throws punches, and takes some too. But hours in, he finally breaks, eyes red and watery, hands and body shaking. She holds him until he finds sleep. And it’s the first time she’s felt like his sister instead of his lover. And she thinks maybe she finally understands what family means.

She knows it’s not the pills or the bottle – that there’s something more. She just wishes she could get inside.

Sawyer finds her the next evening in the kitchen scrubbing dishes in the sink. It is nightfall already, and he crosses the floor in his bare feet and jeans, wraps one arm around her waist, the other hand going to her neck, brushing her hair back, and presses himself to her. "Place looks good," he says casually, "all shiny and new."

Claire sucks in a breath and drops the saucer into the now cold dishwater. It makes a dull clunk as it hits the bottom of the basin. "What’re you doing?" she breathes, feeling his lips pressing softly against the back of her neck.

"Apologizin’," he says as he runs his hand along her abdomen, skims the bottom of her breasts, notes that she isn’t wearing a bra. "And thinkin’. Vegas, you and me and the Doc, that last little rendezvous before we went our separate ways, remember?"

"No," she lies, and pushes his traveling hand away, ignoring the tingles his touch sends down towards her center. "And I don’t need any reminders."

But she does remember – the booze, the gambling, going back to Sawyer’s suite, blurred vision, a risk, and then Jack inside her and Sawyer inside Jack, and then it was just the two of them together, hands and mouths and secrets unfolded. He is the only one who knows the truth about them, and she in turn. They are the keepers of each other’s secrets and feeling him now, his hard-on pressed into her ass, she momentarily forgets his harsh words of yesterday, and she grinds back into him, her wet hands fastening to his on her waist.

"Uh-huh," he groans, tongue snaking behind her ear. She can feel his stubble against her skin, tries not to think of Jack. "You remember _something_."

"Shut up," she commands, turns around in his grip, presses her mouth to his. He responds immediately, crushing his lips more roughly to hers, tongue exploring her dark hole, and he shoves her hard against the edge of the sink.

"Don’t," she protests, and pushes his shoulders hard, "I’ll get all wet."

"Kind of the idea," he mocks, captures her lips with his again.

She pushes him off, stares hard, eyes skimming over his bare chest, his chiseled jaw. She bites her lip. "This is a bad idea," she says, but has a feeling that the crimson in her cheeks might say otherwise.

He pulls her back to him, his callused hands still on her waist, slipping below the fabric of her yellow tank top. "Come on," he says, "ain’t like you got someplace else to be."

"That’s not the point."

"Well what is?"

"Jack’s just in the other room. We’re here to help him, Sawyer, not fuck each other senseless on his kitchen counter while he sleeps."

Sawyer smiles broadly, the vision of her wrapped around him on the counter flashing through his mind. "I doubt he’d mind," he reasons, but sighs when Claire peels out of his grasp and pads toward the living room, leaving the dishes behind.

He sits next to her on the couch, rubs his shoulder against hers. She pulls her knees to her chest, ignores his gaze. "What exactly did you expect, darlin’? Big brother’s just gonna pick up right where he left off? You know that ain’t gonna happen. He don’t want you. He don’t want me neither. He don’t know what the fuck he wants. He wants his daddy back. He wants to be done wanting to fix every damn thing he thinks might be broken. That’s what this is, you know. Fighting that. Hell, even I know that a tiger doesn’t change his stripes, sweetheart." Claire doesn’t speak, just grips her knees even tighter, so Sawyer continues, "He said something last night about the damn island – going back. Can you believe that shit? He’s all messed up, girly. And you know Freckles broke his damn heart. Guess she’d have broken mine too, if I had a heart to break," he says, a nervous sort of chuckle following the lie.

She looks at him then, and in that moment, he looks how she feels – like a fraud, exposed at last for what he really is. And in truth, they’re the same that way. Sawyer’s been fooling people all his life, she knows that. And she’s no different – perhaps in practice, but not in principle. And he’s right about Jack. When she thinks about it, every word that Sawyer has ever said to her has always been laced with a nugget of truth, those truths that nobody wants to face. She reaches over, brushes his hair behind his ear, and he kisses her before she can kiss him, cups her face in his hands. It’s gentler than before, and she groans in protest.

"Just fuck me," she pants when they part, reaches down to find his cock is already straining against his jeans.

Sawyer wastes no time, guiding her down and pushing between her legs. He kisses her hard, grabbing the back of her neck and lifting her into him as he presses his hips into hers, feels her warmth under his cock and hears her whimper against his mouth.

He sits up on his knees, begins unbuttoning her jeans and yanks them off as she pulls her tank top over her head. Immediately, he’s top of her again and his cock twitches against denim at the feel of her milky skin on his bronze tones. One hand travels immediately to Claire’s breast, thumbing over the nipple as his mouth reconnects with hers. He moves his other hand over her thigh and then up to the white cotton of her panties; he skims over the top and she bucks into him, desperate to feel the pressure of his fingers on her. He smiles into her mouth and dips below her panties, pressing one finger over her tiny button, and she whines, bucking into his hand again.

Claire breaks their kiss and reaches for his belt buckle. "No time," she pants as he plants open-mouthed kisses along her neckline.

"We got time, girl," he insists, but growls low when he feels her hand wrapping around the thickness of his cock.

Sawyer pushes her hand away and gets back on his knees. She looks up at him, a desperate need in her eyes as he pulls off her panties, struggling with them a little. His jeans are undone, but still pulled up to his waist, and his cock curls out over the opening. He begins to inch them off, when Claire reaches for him, pulling him down on top of her. She wraps her legs around his waist and Sawyer reaches one hand down to guide himself inside of her.

She moans when he enters her, and suddenly remembers how hard she came that night in Vegas, and wants it even more. "Come on," she breathes, urging him to start. "Come on!"

Sawyer thrusts into her again, and begins a steady rhythm. Claire kisses him in return, her tongue smoothing over the roof of his mouth, driving him to pick up the pace. When he does, she bites down on his bottom lip to keep from screaming, draws blood.

"Ow. Girl!" Sawyer objects, but only fucks her faster.

Claire begins to writhe underneath him, moving erratically as she gets closer. Sawyer presses his hands into her hips, holding her steady as she calls his name when she comes, shuddering around him. He continues to thrust into her, as she grabs his face with both hands, presses her lips to his, beads of sweat forming across her face, eyes all fucked out and euphoric, their kiss breaking and sealing again as he moves over her. "I’m sorry," she whispers, thumbing over his bloody lip and he feels his balls tighten just before he comes, spraying thick ropes inside her.

-

Morning comes and goes again, and it’ll be weeks before she’ll pack her things. Jack sticks around, and they only have to go after him once. Even then, they find him at the airport, sitting on the roof of his car, staring up at the planes as they take off – says he just needed some time alone, and comes home willingly. He starts back at the hospital, makes apologies, even makes dinner some nights. Eventually, he even stops talking about the island, and one afternoon, Claire finds all of his maps in the bins outside.

Sawyer goes back to his place most nights, but comes around again the next day. He’s got responsibilities too, a life – one in which, Claire learns, people call him James, respect him, call him friend.

Jack doesn’t touch her, and she’d be lying if she said she didn’t want him to. But where he leaves off, Sawyer begins, and for right now, that’s well enough for her.


End file.
